Viewpoint: Massachusetts should drop mandatory drug sentences

Barbara Dougan Old habits die hard. We go through the same motions even when we know they aren’t working. Maybe that’s human nature but it’s not good public policy. And when it comes to drug sentencing policy, it’s a disaster.
Nearly 30 years have passed since “mandatory minimum” sentences for drug offenses were first passed in Massachusetts. Each year hundreds of drug offenders receive fixed and often lengthy mandatory minimum sentences – 950 men and women in 2008 alone. Judges are required to impose one-size-fits-all sentences, regardless of the offender’s role in the crime, prior criminal record (if any) or need for drug treatment.
As a result, drug offenders are routinely sentenced to 10 or 15 years in prison – even longer. Those on the lowest rungs of the drug trade, including substance abusers and addicts, receive the same lengthy sentences intended for drug kingpins, even as first-time offenders. They can serve longer sentences than violent criminals.
For example, a person who plays any part in the sale of 200 or more grams of cocaine – the same quantity as a can of baking powder – must be sentenced to at least 15 years in prison. That’s the same mandatory sentence as for a second conviction for armed rape.
It gets worse. While in prison, drug offenders are restricted in their ability to participate in work release programs and to apply for parole – opportunities available to most other inmates. These are the very programs designed to help inmates gain important job skills and to return successfully to the community under supervision. A bipartisan commission convened by former Gov. Romney called such restrictions a “recipe for recidivism.”
It costs $47,000 a year for each state prisoner and on average $35,000 a year for each county prisoner. Lengthy sentences create a growing population of aging prisoners who cost even more, given their medical needs.
So what are taxpayers getting for their investment in cement cells and barbed wire?
Not a reduction in drug offenses. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of state prisoners serving mandatory drug sentences increased by over 32 percent. Nor a reduction in illegal drug use. Last November, the state OxyContin and Heroin Commission warned that drug addiction was now a public health epidemic. And certainly not a good return on their dollars. A 2009 study found that almost 22 percent of the state budget was spent on merely “shovel[ing] up the wreckage of substance abuse and addiction.”
Last month the House passed a criminal justice bill that mainly focused on CORI (criminal records) reform. It did not address the sentencing reforms that are supported by the Executive Office of Public Safety, the Department of Correction, the Parole Board and some county sheriffs. In doing so, the House missed the opportunity to save taxpayers millions while enhancing public safety.
This legislative session, Rep. Benjamin Swan, D-Springfield, filed bills to reform the state’s drug sentencing laws. The bills address the immediate need to relieve our dangerously overcrowded prisons as well as the long-term goal of preventing overly harsh sentences in the first place.
Swan proposed reforms that would allow more drug offenders to be eligible for parole and at an earlier date. The Parole Board would decide who actually gets paroled on a case-by-case basis. This would be a controlled yet effective way to ease non-violent drug offenders back into the community, allowing them to be reunited with their families and to become taxpayers themselves. His bills also included eligibility for work release programs.
In 2009, the Senate passed a comprehensive and balanced sentencing reform bill that included Swan’s language on parole eligibility and work release. As a conference committee meets in the coming weeks to work out a compromise between the House and Senate bills, it should include the reforms approved by the Senate.
Other states have recognized the error of their ways. In 2009 New York decided to reduce the demand for illegal drugs by embracing treatment as the more effective tool. Rhode Island and Michigan are among the many states that have repealed mandatory drug sentencing laws. Massachusetts simply cannot sustain its addiction to lengthy prison sentences for drug offenses. Our tax dollars should be spent in a way that makes communities safer, not poorer.
Barbara J. Dougan is the Massachusetts Project Director for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, P.O. Box 57, Newton, Ma. 02468,www.famm.org